Joy at Work

A Revolutionary Approach to Fun on the Job

De: Dennis W. Bakke

Narrado por: Dennis W. Bakke

Imagine a company where people love coming to work and are highly productive on a daily basis. Imagine a company whose top executives, in a quest to create the most "fun" workplace ever, obliterate labor-management divisions and push decision-making responsibility down to the plant floor. Could such a company compete in today's bottom-line corporate world? Could it even turn a profit?

Well, imagine no more. In Joy at Work, Dennis W. Bakke tells the true story of this extraordinary company, and how, as its co-founder and longtime CEO, he challenged the business establishment with revolutionary ideas that could remake America's organizations. It is the story of AES, whose business model and operating ethos, "let's have fun", were conceived during a 90-minute car ride from Annapolis, Maryland, to Washington, D.C. In the next two decades, it became a worldwide energy giant with 40,000 employees in 31 countries and revenues of $8.6 billion.

Joy at Work offers a model for the 21st-century company that treats its people with respect, gives them unprecedented responsibility, and holds them strictly accountable, because it's the right thing to do, not just because it makes good business sense. More than any book you've ever read, Dennis Bakke's Joy at Work will force you to question everything you thought you knew about corporate success.

©2005 Dennis Bakke (P)2005 PVG

Reseñas de la Crítica

"A timely and inspiring book that challenges us to rethink the purpose of business in society." (Bill Clinton)
"A must-read book for anyone who wants to make work fun." (Jack Kemp)

wordy, hard to listen to

I couldn't finish this audiobook, though I listened for over an hour. I found the ideas expressed too verbosely, and the author seemed to slur his words every couple of sentences which made the recording hard to understand.

Don't expect much

Where is the joy? The narrator doesn't seem to express much. Hey this stuff is not new. Good Christians and great leaders have long known this and expressed it in fewer words before. I wish he wrote this book as a reminder of how people should treat each other and not as though it is something he thought of himself. Maybe I expected too much. Maybe it is a sad comment on the state of our business culture that this is considered revolutionary. I agree with most of his tenets, but people shouldn't expect too much. It reminds me of Dr. Phil in some ways ( without the bombast). He gives advice without acknowledging that it won't work without a fundamental change in a person's nature. He doesn't seem to be willing to acknowledge the fact that evil exist and it can exist in human beings, and if these things aren't acknowledged and dealt with, all the good advice in the world is pretty much an exercise in vanity.

how dreadful the state of our union.

forced to read this for work to keep my job. being told that my values "are in truth [worse] than others." apparently, if you are not a white christian male with traditional white Christian values, you do not deserve to work, not just at private companies but in america at all, as the author argues that this is how ALL business should be done. drips with hypocrisy and dread. encourages employers to create an environment where workers want to and do work for free - "our core value of fun was summed up by one worker in somewhat broken english...'I was on the job site whether it was night or day, whether I was paid or not...i had fun to use my talent fully.'"

"in today's climate of tolerance, it is politically incorrect to say some values are better than others. but the truth is, some are." note that my good christian boss is having us read this in an environment of constant racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism...every most dreadful thing that someone could say, the things you think no one even says that anymore, those are the "core values" of christianity inherently morally superior to everyone else. throw tolerance out the window, that's actually a crime of our modern era. replace with selflessness - ie complete sacrifice of the self in the name of the corporate good.

please dont read this book. please dont believe these ideas. create a better gdamn future than this apocalyptic hellhole dream.

out of order

I like to listen to the book while reading it and this audio is so out of order chapter 4 in the audio starts almost at the end of chapter 4 and it is like this throughout the audio it doesn't start at the beginning of the chapter in the book so confusing for me

Great book

Great book, however, audible has the chapters all wrong. For instance, the postscript chapter does not start in the audible "chapter 8" but instead it starts 1 hour and 7 seconds in Chapter 7 with approximately 3 mins and 16 seconds left. This is throughout and is especially challenging if you are reading the actual book along with audible. Next, the postscript chapter abruptly stops halfway through. I received the "thank you for choosing audible" on page 261 while I still have 7 pages remaining. This is very frustrating since I paid for the entire book, not for "most" of it.

Good - but not great!

Why do publishers give misleading titles?

I expected an innovative, exciting book that gave me a way to make a workplace fun, exciting, even fresh. I got a nasally author telling me, in a very roundabout way how he ran a power company.

NOT VERY RELEVANT and far, far too wordy. You really will struggle to get through it all.

A different perspective

Perhaps there are some valid views presented here, but this is a highly religeous aproach. In fact, If you aren't interested in a religous pep rally,,you really aren't interested in this book.

Fix this Audiobook

I don't understand why it is so hard to match the audiobook chapters with the book chapters. it makes it near impossible to find the chapter you are looking for if you are doing a book study. Fix your book...

Don't waste your money

The first couple chapters were such a disappointment I could not bear to continue through the whole thing. This was the only time I really wanted a refund for an audiobook. I was also looking for some non-religious inspiration and new ideas but clearly I selected the wrong audiobook maybe I just skimmed the description too quickly.

Boring and slow to get to the point

I wanted to like this book and stayed with it for a very long time before giving up. The lessons were lost in such a lengthy and boring story. It had an opportunity to be great, but probably would have been better if summed up in an article for a better reading experience.